Silflay Hraka

No more beer coolers, ever.

Beer bottles that use solar power to keep their precious contents cool in the height of summer could be a welcome fringe benefit of thin-film technology currently under development.

The material being developed by researchers at the US Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute sticks solar cells and heat pumps onto surfaces, and could ultimately turn walls, windows and even beer bottles into climate control systems.

Still, no matter how cold, sunlight breaks down beer. It’s not only heat that skunks it. So what we need is not only thin film, but aluminum bottles.

This sound familiar to anyone?

People call me a beer snob because I won’t drink most — OK any — mainstream American beer. I won’t drink Miller, even though I share a name with the company. Coors disgusts me. Michelob is just not good.
I recently left a bar because of the beer selection — they had nothing I would pay money for. Killians Red was the Leominster bar’s only “fancy beer,” the bartender said.
Snob may not be the right word, maybe connoisseur. I like to taste beers. I get excited when I go to a bar and they have a new beer I haven’t had.

More bad news for commercial fisherman, as the Feds switch to promoting aquaculture over trawling.

Per capita consumption of seafood increased to 16.6 pounds in 2004.

Federal regulators hammer away at rationalization, a restructuring of the industry driven by the tenets of pure economic efficiency with no calculation of other sorts of wealth, such as the well-being of coastal communities.

The ferries, they are not ready.

The Hyde was built in the 1970s and the Silver Lake is 41 years old.

“That would have put the boat off the run until October. Luckily, we were able to find one in some old inventory in Cedar Island,” he said.

You’re the leader of your country, one of the most powerful men in the world, and you can’t get an in-flight drink on your private plane because…….the flight crew has stolen all your liquor.

Update: More here.

Underwater Grasses in Chesapeake Bay & Mid-Atlantic Coastal Waters: A Guide to Identifying Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

Cause I’m always thinking, while I’m pulling two pounds of weed off my hook in the Ocracoke Inlet, “Man, I wish I knew what species this was.”

Ladies, when it comes time for the change of life, there’s a beer just for you.

The hops that beer is made of are rich in phytoestrogens, which are forms of the oestrogen hormone in women that maintain bone density and reduce risks of various other health problems. The institute is therefore developing a new beer that contains ten times the normal amount of phytoestrogens. Lady Beer, as it is to be called, will be for an unusual target group - women going through the menopause, as oestrogen levels then are significantly lower than usual.

The hippest beer is Israel is brewed by Palestinians

Taybeh Beer is named after a town in the West Bank, near Ramallah, where the brewery has been situated since its establishment in 1995. Nadim Khoury, its founder and “Master Brewer” claims his company is the only micro brewery in the Middle East, producing about 6,000 hectoliters of beer annually.

Palestinians are not known to be heavy drinkers, partly because many are Muslims who observe the prohibition against drinking alcohol. Generally, the drinking culture in the Middle East is modest compared to that of Europe or the United States. Although there is a demand for Khoury’s beer in the Palestinian territories, he said he stopped selling his beer in Gaza after the year 2000, when violence between Israelis and Palestinians broke out, because Gazans became firmer in their religious beliefs.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Lebanese fear Israel’s offensive

Israel is continuing an air, sea and land blockade on Lebanon as part of a major offensive to press for the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah militants.

After the bombing of Beirut’s international airport, people across the city spoke to the BBC News website about their fears for the future.

Excerpts:

I think Hezbollah’s action are completely out of line. They are acting independently of the Lebanese government and have no right to incite this violence against Israel.

Hezbollah’s demands are ridiculous and I don’t think they will be met. Lebanon will be reduced to rubble before these prisoners are returned. - Gaby Bayram, Consultant

There is a saying here: “Don’t tickle a sleeping tiger, because you will be eaten.” What did we really expect?

Meanwhile the Lebanese who suffered for 30 years during the war can prepare themselves for more suffering. - Edmon Khoury, Educational Head

If I were acting for Hezbollah, I would not have kidnapped those two soldiers. But it’s done now and it would be counter-productive for us Lebanese to speak up against it.

Many would say that Israel has reacted harshly because they were just waiting for an excuse for a harsh act. Some say the Lebanese government is trying to prove how tough it is without having a real strategy. - Walid Nasrallah, University Professor

I post this mainly because it brings to mind an ex-girlfriend. Her father is Lebanese or at least of Lebanese descent. I don’t know if he was born in the States or not. I don’t really think she identified herself as Lebanese as such, but the poignancy of the plight of common citizens in Lebanon makes my heart reach out to her and to them. But for her grandparents immigrating to the United States, the suffering of the people of Lebanon could be hers and her family’s. It gives the conflict in the Middle East a more human perspective, at least to me.

I also think of one of my former professors, Dr. Ajami. Dr. Ajami was the professor-host on our class trip to France back in March of this year. He is a rather short gentleman in his 60s. He’s fairly quiet spoken, but he has a very wry sense of humor and he’s quite well-versed on issues in the Mid-East. Generally he gives the impression of a rather sweet old man.

While in Paris, we stayed at a smallish hotel in Montparnasse, the Hotel Apollonaire. While it well positioned in relation to the Metro, it was a little further south than we expected. The rooms were pretty small and the power was iffy at best. All the students wondered why in hell we were booked there when accomodations in the more-central Saint Germain area were just as inexpensive and maybe even more so.

We found out one night while wandering the streets of Montparnasse looking for a restaurant. We came across Dr. Ajami walking rather slowly in the opposite direction. He was using his umbrella as a walking stick and was carrying a small bag of groceries. I remember very distinctly the loaf of bread protruding from the top of the bag. I also remember that Dr. Ajami looked rather worn but he seemed in good spirits. We found out later on the trip that he has cancer and had to seek treatment during the week we were in Paris.

It turns out that the hotel we were in is just a few blocks from a Lebanese cafe and grocer and the owners of this cafe are either friends or family members of Dr. Ajami’s. He’s been leading trips to Paris for years and stops in to visit them every time he’s there. He sits and drinks espressos and smokes cigarettes and enjoys good Lebanese cuisine and I guess reconnects with his family. I found the contrast between his obvious depression over his physical condition and the smiles he gave us while talking about the cafe and its owners to be rather touching.

My ex and I ended up having dinner at that very same cafe that evening. Like I said, she doesn’t really identify herself as Lebanese, but she played up that part of her background in the restaurant that night. She certainly knew what most of the items on the menu happened to be and that surprised me some. I think she enjoyed getting in touch with her cultural heritage and I think she enjoyed pretending to be more Lebanese than she really is.

Come to think of it, her Lebanese identity was how I planned to protect her in case of any kind of anti-American violence while we were abroad. I was going to admit to being an American but she was going to be Lebanese if I had anything to say about it. (One unfortunately worries about terrorism when traveling abroad these days. If you are a planner like me, you plan ahead for these kinds of worst-case-scenarios and try to save yourself or your loved ones.)

Anyway, I sometimes find it difficult to connect the falling bombs and human suffering overseas, especially when most of it is delivered rather clinically in a headline or on the television. I find that I sometimes become inured to the constant barrage of it all. Then I imagine my ex huddling in the dark with her family, worried and afraid, listening to the gunfire and explosions. I imagine my professor walking alone with his groceries through unsafe streets. I don’t find it hard to put a human face on things after that. And I wonder if maybe we’d have a little less violence in the world if we could all put a human face on those we call enemies.

Israel imposes Lebanon blockade

Is this the beginning of the next war in the Middle East, as Yossi Klein Halevi of The New Republic believes?

The first stage of the war started two weeks ago, with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim; now, with Hezbollah’s latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon. Ultimately, though, Israel’s antagonists won’t be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.

Any conflict between Israel and Iran/Syria via their terrorist proxies; Hezbollah and Hamas, has a better than even chance of widening into a regional war, especially during the first few days of the conflict. After a few days or a week, a narrative of sorts will establish itself in the minds of leaders on each side of the conflict, giving them a set of facts to base decisions upon. Whether or not those decisions will be rational is anyone’s guess, but the danger of a wider war will be less once a narrative thread along the lines of “Israel’s aim is to recover their kidnapped soldiers and destroy Hezbollah’s fortifications in the south of Lebanon” has established itself in the minds of the participants.

Prior to that, the fog of war, the fluid nature of modern warfare, and the number of potential adversaries crammed into what is after all a fairly small area of the Earth’s surface raises the very real danger that one or more key decision makers will misinterpret one development or another and apprehend a narrative of the conflict that would be obviously incorrect if there were a more developed pool of data available.

Or, as Chester says

At least three groups, Israel, Hamas, Hizbollah, and possibly a fourth, the Lebanese military, are now involved. From that stew, an event might emerge that like it or not would force a widening of the conflict by one side or another or an entry by Iran or Syria.

An event like this one, perhaps.

Israel has information that Lebanese guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Thursday.

That story is not good news for anyone trying to damp down the conflagration, though if true it provides a good explanation of why Israel is bombing bridges and transport centers. The harder it is to move around in southern Lebanon, the harder it is to smuggle out the captured soldiers.

Presuming that the incursion into Lebanon is indeed the beginning of a wider war, the key to Israeli success and thus U.S. success, for we are allies*, and facing a common enemy, will be control of the narrative, and the shorter the narrative, the better. Certainly the Israelis will have learned from their own experiences over the years, and the Iraq war has provided some sterling examples of what happens when a short, victorious war becomes a tedious, slogging occupation.

Control of when the narrative changes would also be a great help, as it grants tactical surprise. If Bashar al-Assad believes that “Israel is clearing out Hezbollah outposts in the Bekaa Valley“, it will come as a great surprise when the story becomes “Israeli forces in the Bekaa Valley are advancing into Syria down the Beirut-Damascus road.”**

It would be very helpful of Assad to flee Damascus at that point, providing us with the gratifying example (as well as another powerful narrative thread) of another Arab leader leaving a historic capitol defenseless before an army of the West, but though such behavior can probably be expected, it’s not best to count on it.

Historically, Damascus has been the key to Syria, as well as to Palestine. There’s a school of thought that says if the First Crusade has concentrated on capturing it, rather than Jerusalem, then the Crusader kingdoms would not have fallen later, as it provided the defending Muslims with a base from which to conduct raids and disrupt crusader supply lines. Capturing it, or simply driving the Syrian leadership from it, should put an end to the hot part of a shooting war.

Afterwards, of course, is where control of the narrative becomes most difficult. The Arab reaction to an extended Israeli occupation of Damascus would make the American experience in Iraq look like an afternoon tea. Ideally, the policing and protection of the country would be handed over to a friendly third party with experience in the area, and the Israeli troops could withdraw.

There’s really only one solution at that point. Get Turkey to take over the occupation, and bring back the Ottomans.

*Despite the self-evident need for our actions on behalf of Israel to be as under the table as possible, given the tetchy nature of the Arab, I suspect we will happily shoot down anything over flying Iraq on its way to Jerusalem from Iran, be it missiles or airplanes, and confine the rest of our aid to intelligence sharing. Israel can handle Syria’s ground forces on its own, and it would be a miracle if Iran managed to put even a battalion of troops on the ground in Syria, unless they’ve already done so

The Lebanese Tourism Ministry’s Research Center announced an amazing statistic in early July: in the first six months of the year, 60,888 Iranian tourists visited Lebanon. No other Asian country came close (the Philippines ranked second, with a bit over 12,000)..

**Yes, one might expect the Israel army to descend from the Golan Heights, as did the British in 1918, rather than taking the trouble to drive north in to the hornet’s nest of the Bekaa, then east, but there’s the small matter of U.N. Troops between them and Syria, and I doubt it would be helpful to the overall narrative if Israel is seen as disrespecting the baby blues, despite the U.N.’s historic mistreatment of Israel..

There are two other historic ways for an army to advance on Damascus, from the eastern desert, and from the North via the Homs Gap, but the first necessitates an invasion of Lebanon, and there’s little need to advance on Damascus from the north if one can do so from the west.